Kuga je, pored Stranca, još jedno Kamijevo remek-delo, koje je svom autoru obezbedilo neprolaznu slavu. Ovo je priča o surovosti preživljavanja i grčevitim naporima ljudske vrste da se odupre ne samo smrti, već i ideji o njoj. Kuga je roman koji na svakoj stranici predočava veliku umetničku veštinu, veličanstven je u obimu tema koje obrađuje i bezvremen zahvaljujući načinu na koji se bavi pitanjima morala, egzistencije i generalnog stanja ljudske duše u današnjem vremenu.
U Oranu, gradu na obali Severne Afrike, predznaci epidemije kuge zatiču stanovnike nespremnim, ali i nevoljnim da prihvate razmere katastrofe koja im se sprema. Ova bolest postepeno postaje sveprisutna stvarnost, u kojoj se rastače prošlost, sadašnjost, a pogotovo budućnost, i koja dovodi svoje žrtve do ultimativnih spoznaja o prirodi bola i gubitka.
Works, such as the novels The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), of Algerian-born French writer and philosopher Albert Camus concern the absurdity of the human condition; he won the Nobel Prize of 1957 for literature.
Origin and his experiences of this representative of non-metropolitan literature in the 1930s dominated influences in his thought and work.
Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest, he came at the age of 25 years in 1938; only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field. The man and the times met: Camus joined the resistance movement during the occupation and after the liberation served as a columnist for the newspaper Combat.
The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds notion of acceptance of the absurd of Camus with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction." Meursault, central character of L'Étranger (The Stranger), 1942, illustrates much of this essay: man as the nauseated victim of the absurd orthodoxy of habit, later - when the young killer faces execution - tempted by despair, hope, and salvation.
Besides his fiction and essays, Camus very actively produced plays in the theater (e.g., Caligula, 1944).
The time demanded his response, chiefly in his activities, but in 1947, Camus retired from political journalism.
Doctor Rieux of La Peste (The Plague), 1947, who tirelessly attends the plague-stricken citizens of Oran, enacts the revolt against a world of the absurd and of injustice, and confirms words: "We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them."
People also well know La Chute (The Fall), work of Camus in 1956.
Camus authored L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom) in 1957. His austere search for moral order found its aesthetic correlative in the classicism of his art. He styled of great purity, intense concentration, and rationality.
Camus died at the age of 46 years in a car accident near Sens in le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin.